Despite its outward wealth, lavish homes, boats, fine restaurants and expensive golf courses, Florida's real residents are not awash with money and many struggle to make a living. The average weekly wage is $756 based on Florida State statistics and ranks the State as 27 in the US. The avaerage weekly wage in Charlotte County is between $501 and $700. I feel this is based on "professional workers" rather than your, builder, sales assistants and waiting staff in resturants and does rather give the impression of a comfortably well-off population.
The state was one of the few states to not have a state minimum wage law until 2004, when voters passed a constitutional amendment establishing a state minimum wage and (unique among minimum wage laws) mandating that it be adjusted for inflation every six months. Currently, the minimum wage in the state of Florida is $7.21 as of January 1, 2009. With bread costing anything from $2.50 to $5 for specialty bread, ponder on that one, my fellow Brits...
Unfortunately, the State of Florida has not offered its usual sales tax free week during 2009. In the past, the sales tax holiday was voted upon in the State Legislature, but the measure was not brought up for a vote this year. This event has in the past proved to be very popular with parents - and tourists I guess.
However, good to see some of the bigger stores doing their bit to help, including Walmart, Target and J C Penney, with good discounts and incentives.
In the UK we are fortunate that our education system provides for essentials such as paper, books etc in lessons. Ok, we have to buy glue sticks, pens, pencils etc for our children, but just imagine if we had to also purchase exercise books, folders etc.
